A known parking assist device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. JP11 (1999)-208420A2 displays a target parking position designation display so that an operator designates a target parking position of a vehicle on a screen showing an image of vehicle surroundings by a positional operation of the target parking position designation display on the screen. With the known parking assist device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. JP11 (1999)-208420A2, in case the designated path to the target parking position is generated by the calculation, the vehicle is led to the target parking position along the generated path.
An initial display position of the target parking position designation display on the screen may always be determined at a predetermined default position in accordance with an initial position of the target parking position being a predetermined relative positional relationship relative to an initial position of the vehicle or may be arbitrarily determined by determining a predetermined relative position relative to a vehicle position at a time before the initial display as an initial position of the target parking position based on the traveling history of the vehicle. In case the initial display position of the target parking position designation display is determined arbitrarily, the initial display position may be positioned outside a display range of the screen. In this case, provided that the initial display position is not to be displayed on the screen, the operators is required to conduct the positional operation in order to view the target parking position designation display on the screen although the operator cannot see the target parking position designation display on the screen, which makes it difficult to designate the target parking position and requires longer time for designating the target parking position.
A need thus exists for a parking assist device which enables an operator to designate a target parking position to park a vehicle with less complication.